Wednesday, September 21, 2011

Accenture has been awarded a 10-year technology consulting and outsourcing contract by the Thomas Cook Group plc, which includes the transformation and management of the travel group's technology infrastructure across Europe. The financial terms of the contract were not disclosed.

Under the agreement, Accenture will design and implement an agile IT infrastructure that integrates the travel services company's separate European IT structures into a single group organization. This new infrastructure will draw on public and private cloud technologies to help transform IT operations, processes, methods and systems to provide a platform for the efficient growth of the business. In addition, Accenture will deliver technology infrastructure management, IT service delivery, service management, service desk, data center services, workspace services, network services and security services.

Accenture will also provide finance and accounting BPO services to Thomas Cook as part of the contract, in addition to extending by three years a 10-year contract signed in 2007 for Accenture to provide application management, technology infrastructure management, finance and accounting, human resources and payroll services to Thomas Cook's UK operations, and by seven years, a five-year contract for hotel settlement support services for Thomas Cook Germany.

"We are delighted to expand our collaboration with Accenture to leverage their world-class expertise and capabilities in transforming our IT operations by implementing new, lean technology that is 'cloud enabled'", said Gary Edwards, Group CIO at Thomas Cook Group plc. "This will help Thomas Cook deliver significant savings, while creating the agility we need to respond to customer needs."

"The Thomas Cook Group recognizes the benefits of Accenture's technology and outsourcing assets, people, processes and tools," said Martin McPhee, a senior executive in Accenture's Infrastructure Services group. "This includes the huge advantage that leaner technology brings in terms of flexibility and the ability to react rapidly to both the changes in the market and demands from Thomas Cook customers. By expanding our successful collaboration, Thomas Cook and Accenture will create a simplified European IT platform that supports and enables Thomas Cook Group's future growth aspirations."

Accenture will draw on its infrastructure partner ecosystem to deliver a best-in-class solution. With Cisco, Accenture is delivering scalable 'any-to-any' connectivity, supporting Class of Service (CoS), ready to transport VoIP, video, unified communications, and collaboration across a simplified and highly optimized single network using Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS) technology.

Cooperating closely with Lufthansa Systems, Accenture will use virtualization, automation and cloud-based services to deliver Infrastructure as a Service. This will enable Thomas Cook to streamline applications and data centers while delivering business-level security and reliability. These services will be provided 'as a service' to enable Thomas Cook to scale up and scale down infrastructure capacity without changing the service constructs and the way in which new users are provisioned.

"The Thomas Cook Group has recognized that to achieve high performance, it needs the right infrastructure at the right cost to support both current and future business needs," said Clare Filby, senior executive in Accenture's Travel Services practice. "This transformation program underpins Thomas Cook's wider growth strategy, which supports the company's focus on its core business of delivering the best travel and travel-related services."

By working with Accenture, Thomas Cook will also consolidate the number of existing vendors. Accenture will deliver the services from both client locations and Accenture's Global Delivery Network. To read about Accenture's work with other clients in the travel industry, visit: http://www.accenture.com/us-en/industry/travel/Pages/index.aspx?tab=4.

About Accenture

Accenture is a global management consulting, technology services and outsourcing company, with more than 223,000 people serving clients in more than 120 countries. Combining unparalleled experience, comprehensive capabilities across all industries and business functions, and extensive research on the world's most successful companies, Accenture collaborates with clients to help them become high-performance businesses and governments. The company generated net revenues of US$21.6 billion for the fiscal year ended Aug. 31, 2010. Its home page is www.accenture.com.

About Thomas Cook Group plc

Thomas Cook Group plc is one of the world's leading travel groups with FY 2010 sales of GBP 8.9 billion and 22.5 million customers. The Group operates under six geographical segments in 21 countries, and is number one or two in all its core markets. Its business is supported by 31,000 employees, a fleet of 94 aircraft and a network of over 3,500 retail outlets. For further details please visit www.thomascookgroup.com.